Experimental education / by Robert R. Rusk.

  • Robert Robertson Rusk
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Experimental education / by Robert R. Rusk. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    provement of appropriate means of measuring such develop- ment. In addition to weighing and measuring the child, Experimental Education treats of sensory acuity and sensory discrimination, the types of observation, the various forms of memory, the nature of the child’s mental imagery, and the part which such imagery plays in the child’s thinking. It even attempts to estimate quantitatively a function so complex as general intelligence and one so subtle as suggesti- bility. The individual differences in children, disclosed by investigations in these directions, together with the extent to which intellectual and moral differences are dependent on the original nature of the child, and the limitations which such endowment sets to the work of education—all provide fruit- ful fields of inquiry. The most economical modes of learn- ing, the fatigue involved in various forms of mental work, and the effect of school organisation on the child, form a special section ; and the psychological analysis of the efforts of the child in the various school subjects—reading, writing, etc.—is also a branch of Experimental Education of great practical importance. Valuable as are the results already obtained, the justi- fication for Experimental Education does not solely depend on these ; rather is it to be found in the questions being raised in spheres where formerly there was apparently nothing in dispute. It may be asked how the new method will affect the position of the teacher. It will deliver him from the tyranny of tradition and the caprice of the faddist, and bring him under the servitude of his science, since the scientific worker must ever submit to the method of his subject. If it removes him from the domination of an arbitrary authority, it requires his submission to a rational authority, one that can be questioned and whose dicta can be verified by experimentation. Doubtless teachers will have but few opportunities of accomplishing original research work in Experimental Educa- tion. This requires a training which cannot form part of the ordinary professional course, and the time demanded by research work can hardly be given by one engaged in the routine duties of teacher. But, as Professor Dewey says,} 1 Educational Essays, p. 158.
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